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“There was a note on her bedside table. Do you remember her screaming and yelling at me the night before she died?”
I paused. “Yeah, it was something about you and her friend…Deborah.”
My father scrubbed a hand over his face, and his expression turned solemn. “She thought Deborah and I were having an affair. She flew into a rage when she saw us together, and I had to hold her back before she hurt Deborah.”
I searched his face, bile rising in the back of my throat. “Were you?”
He shook his head. “Your mother is the only woman I’ve ever loved and the only woman I will ever love.”
“Why are you telling me all of this now?”
“Because I had no idea you blamed me for her death and that you carried so much of it around,” he replied with a frown. “I know you and I don’t see eye to eye, Bernard. We haven’t for a very long time, and I know that’s my fault.”
“You tried to destroy my company.”
He winced. “I know, and I know I can’t change what I tried to do. All I can do is apologize.”
“You expect me to believe that after everything you’ve done, that’s it? How do I know your apology is sincere and not another trick to get me to lower my defenses?”
Especially because he had never shown any indication otherwise.
One conversation wasn’t going to shake the indomitable Michael Shaw.
It couldn’t.
“Fair enough.” He clasped his hands behind his back and lifted his chin. “I know I’ve done everything to earn your mistrust and suspicion, but I am going to make up for it.”
I folded my arms over my chest and stared at him.
“I should’ve tried harder to help your mother, and I shouldn’t have pushed you away when she did. I wanted to protect you, but I also couldn’t be around you. You remind me so much of her.”
I blinked. “You told me I was more like you than I was like her.”
“I lied.” He shrugged, his eyes never leaving my face. “I was trying to convince myself that you were.”
Silence stretched between us.
My father unclasped his hands and bridged the distance between us. “I know this doesn’t change anything between us, and I know you’re going to need time to wrap your head around everything I’ve told you.”
“Yes.”
My head was still spinning, his words reverberating inside of my head.
I didn’t recognize the man I was staring at.
For the life of me, I couldn’t determine if he was the villain I’d made him out to be or the deeply flawed person he portrayed himself as.
Or was he both?
After years of standing on opposite sides of the divide between us and years of misunderstandings that led to distance, it was hard for me to believe he was ready to move on and even harder for me to come to terms with the fact that his treatment of my mother wasn’t as black and white as I wanted to believe.
For the first time in my life, I was seeing him differently.
And I wasn’t sure what to believe.
Wordlessly, my father spun on his heels and hurried into the kitchen. There, he opened and closed several cupboards before retrieving two glasses. Then he rummaged through the pantry, muttering to himself as he did. I spun around to face the fireplace and stared at the flames as they danced and crackled.
I thought I saw my mother’s face a few times.
